and benevolence, and beneficence, and faith in the power of goodness, rather than of plans, schemes, articles, and confessions; that the world is moving while they stand still, and that the motion of the time is not backward, but onward, and pacific, and humane; that the watchwords of our country are union and brotherhood,— the very heart of the Christian philosophy, the very standard from the sacred lips of Jesus: "By this shall all men know that are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

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Yes, it is here that the Sun of-righteousness is to reach the zenith of its earthly glory. If not here, in this land, where every religion is protected, where every conscience is held sacred,-where no rack, no stake, no scaffold, can intimidate, — where no church, no creed, priest, or preacher can interpose earthly authority between the soul and its Creator, - if not here, then explore the globe and tell me where. Consider the present and presage the future, and tell me when and where the problem of religious liberty can be resolved? Tell me when and where opinion unrestrained, and cooperation in unity of spirit, can be practicable or be possible. The truth has been declared, the decree has gone forth. The angel of a free faith stands with one foot upon the land and one upon the sea of this last-born hemisphere, and affirms in the name of God, and of human welfare, that the terrors of religious tyranny shall be here no longer.

It is said of the brave Reformer of the sixteenth century, that he then blew a blast which shook all Europe. But that blast was blown for only a partial emancipation of the soul from spiritual chains.

For by his own hostility to his laboring brethren, the Reformer soon discovered that, with all his bold advocacy of private judgment, he meant by freedom no more than a change of masters; and from that day till this, the Reformation, though leading indirectly to the best aspects of the present, has been directly little else than an exchange of Roman pontiffs for Protestant popes. Luther was only the Moses to lead to the confines of Canaan, which he saw from Pisgah, but not the Joshua to conduct Israel up fully into the rich land of promise.

In the way of independent investigation of Christian truth, there is a tyranny of Protestant church systems extending its hideous arms into the most sacred privacy of social relations, which is as formidable to the timid and unheroic searcher, as the racks of a Roman inquisition, which so effectually extinguish the evil of heresy. But, superior to the spirit either of Romanism or of Protestantism, there is a spirit of Christianity, whose heavenly aspect I would gladly recognize in the heart of any human brother, whether found in a Romanist cathedral or a Protestant prayer-meeting.

We see now some of the potent forces which are at work, destroying divisions, and harmonizing sections, societies, and the interests of individuals. The only method remaining to perpetuate religious exclusiveness is to stop steam-cars, take down telegraphs, silence the press, and destroy the newspaper. For every observer must perceive that railroads, electric wires, a free press, and a free literature are the natural, necessary, uncompromising, and eternal enemies of self-complacent and uncharitable sectarianism.

This day completes seventy-seven years since our patriot fathers proclaimed the charter of civil freedom, under which, at this hour, we live and prosper. But we have yet to hear proclaimed the declaration of the world's religious disenthralment. Give us but the pacific policy, the material prosperity, the scientific discoveries, beneficent inventions, and harmonizing Christian researches of seventy-seven years more, under the protection of our independent government, and the work is done. In this hemisphere spiritual tyranny will have perished, sectarianism will have died, its history will have been recorded, its epitaph written, the human mind will be free, and God will reign supreme sovereign of the soul. Three quarters of a century more of a pacific policy! Yes, it must be, if at all, it must be in peace that the problem of religious liberty is to be resolved. War disorders all, revolution confuses everything. ature, sculpture, painting, music, all the harmonizing, refining, and elevating arts are unpatronized, suspended, often crushed, in war. The resources of the nation are then turned in a wrong direction, and employed to uncivilize society. Our own country, directly or indirectly, within the last twelve years, has expended in war a sufficient amount of money to have purchased all the territory she has acquired, and besides this to have built a college in every city, perhaps in every county, of this broad Union, affording each a handsome perpetual endowment, by which every child now living in this land might, as far as capable, have been liberally educated, to say nothing of the loss of human life and human happiness, which no words can describe, and no figures cal

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culate. Such are the painful trials to which we are subjecting our Christian faith, the peculiar message of which proclaims peace on earth and good-will among men. Both the war and the expenditure may have been necessary and inevitable; yet, in this nineteenth century of enlightened Christianity, all such expenditure appears to indicate the passing strange short-sightedness of human action. The religious mission of our country, the power of our religion itself among ourselves, manifestly depend upon our peaceful policy.

Surely there is a glorious day yet to come, and though we may not, the generations who follow us will see and enjoy it. Let us cherish grateful memories this day of the noble deeds and virtues of our departed fathers, as we would be gratefully remembered by those who shall succeed us.

Now may each of us, and all, enjoy the benediction of the God of our fathers, who is our God, and the God of the eternal future.

DISCOURSE XXIV.

WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? WHO IS A

UNITARIAN?

YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.- - John viii. 32.

THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE. xvii. 22.

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ENDEAVORING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE

A NAME is inevitable. Some, it is said, " are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." So it seems to be, in some sense, with names. A name is voluntarily chosen, or it is imputed. Some seem to be born with names, some achieve names, and some have names thrust upon them.

It is the same with bodies of men as with individuals. And neither can any name be adopted voluntarily, nor any assigned involuntarily, without liability to misconstruction. Names are descriptive usually, or are designed to be descriptive, in some particular or particulars, of the persons or communities which adopt or receive them. All names being